Some Assumed Characteristics of Voluntarily Childfree Women and Men

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Abstract
Two experiments were conducted to assess students' perceptions from written descriptions of voluntarily childfree women and men. In Experiment 1, a sterilized, childfree wife was rated as less sensitive and loving, less typical an American woman, more likely to be active in women's liberation ( ps < .01), and as less happy, less well-adjusted, less likely to get along with her parents, and less likely to be happy and satisfied at age 65 ( ps < .05), relative to an otherwise identically described mother of two. In Experiment 2, similar differential trait ascriptions appeared for both childfree men and women. In fact, ratings of the childfree man were less favorable than those for the childfree woman, suggesting possible greater bias against childfree men than women.

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